User Centered

Am I the only one that thought these: < > scroll selectors in this Visual Source Safe Option menu is a bit strange?

It's a case of window size vs. content visibility...and I say in this case, the tab visibility should have won out... there's just two small tabs tucked away in the scrolled menu, could they really not just expand the window out a bit further to accomodate them?

...to use this gigantic waste of space, menus, and UI for more "settings" at a later date.


Sincerely,
HP


-You know I miss you HP. I jest out of love....and nostalgia.

While struggling through yet another futile attempt to get a home network up and running with my D-Link router (There's not enough my.opera hosting space to hold the number of posts I could write on this horrible user experience), I kept getting confused by this winXP security menu:

..On the surface, the first menu(on the right for those not familiar) seems pretty user centered. You got the obligatory, and easy to undertand stoplight metaphor in conjunction with the checkmarks/"X", and the shields. All the trappings of a decent, easy to learn interface. It's the fact that you can't really do much with that menu that makes this confusing. More importantly, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to.

You have to click on "Windows Firewall" at the bottom there (which throws me every time I see this screen after a long period of time), only to be presented with the dialog on the left. So much visual "weight" is given to the "Security Essentials" section that I assume that's where I need to be to handle my firewall... but all for naught! ("turn around please"*) I have to find the other firewall control on the same screen.

I propose the following, hastily manipulated image instead. You can throw some of the descriptive text in there if you'd like as well...

My "advanced" button I pasted there would lead you to the "Exceptions" and "Advanced" tab from the first screenshot above.. as well as the "Recommendations." Anyway, the key is, the bulk of time, I just want to turn it on or off quickly, and I rarely mess with the "advanced" options, but apart from that, the original interface seems shattered. In the first image above, what's the difference in the average user's mind between "Security Essentials" and "Manage Security Settings for:"? Isn't it essential to manage security?


*Yeah, that's Spaceballs

It appears we never learn the lessons of the past.

So, like the rest of the known world, I thought it was cool to get a RAZR phone that I've had now for about 6 months or so. I've since come to the conclusion that the only thing I really like about it is the form factor/physical design of it (and I'm not the only one).

Phone comments aside, the most confusing thing about the phone is the PC software that you can purchase to go with it. The designers decided to duplicate the phone's appearance; they used the phone metaphor, which, back in the day (which you can pin down as being over 10 years ago) it was thought to be a good idea because people needed the familiarity making it easier to learn. But the problem with this notion was quite frankly, that model sucks for several reasons: because it carried over the SAME limitations as the real world, often it doesn't or can't accurately mimic the real world device and trying to emulate those real world interfaces with a mouse a keyboard is, at best, cumbersome.

This RAZR application is no different. None of the buttons make any sense when applied to this software application. I mean, think about it- if the buttons on the phone were sufficient, why would I even need software on the PC? (backgroud- this application is supposed to run along with the phone, not in place of it)

Of course that's not the case at all.. noooooo my friends. The PC software has all kinds of different functions. But since they make absolutely NO sense in this interface, there's this little "slide out" menu on the side with all these functions.

So, apart from the fact that there's no reason at all to limit the interface to the actual size of my phone, 90 percent of even that space is taken up just so I can dial number and place calls.. on my computer. Ummm. Anyway, almost every function you execute pulls up a real windows-type dialog or window after clicking.. it's just impossible with this interface to know what and where everything is.

Obvious: It's a windows application- treat it as such. There's no reason at all to mimic the look and feel of the phone, especially since you completely violate the mappings and functions of the real phone. So buttons I click on my phone are disabled in this software, or replaced with fake buttons- or they do something completely different (see other observations).

By my estimation and actual use, almost all useful functionality for this software is found in the slide out menu there that (of course) isn't at all related to the actual phone. These functions have strange icons that aren't consistent and are difficult to figure out.

Other observations:

• The "close" button for the application is not the red "off" button of the phone. Instead, it's the exact same looking icon at the bottom, but grey.
  
  
• The soft keys and the circular navigation keys don't do anything
  
  
• There are several new keys introduced here- The phone and the green circle appear to both be "call" functions, but the phone actually pull up the "call a contact" dialog box.
  
  
• There is a phone book icon there that isn't the same icon as the phone uses. This is the case for other icons as well. There are no less that three "envelope" icons visible. I know what they all are, but still- that's a bit much. The multimedia studio (the bells icon) launches what appears to be a completely different (and somewhat better designed) application that almost makes me completely forget that there is a RAZR phone on my desktop. I imagine most people spend the majority of time there getting/setting images and ringtones and the like that it almost warrants a stand alone application.
  

I would like an easy, efficient means of tracking where my money is going.

I've tried to use MS Money and other assorted freeware/shareware apps. By their nature, they all have the same problem. They require me to sit down after the fact by my computer and log it. This would normally not be too much of a problem, except that the listings that come up from my bank are mostly not reasonable. If you see the business name, you are lucky. More often, I get an address that shows up and I have to cross reference with the receipt to find out what that purchase actually was.

The problem I think is that we need a bank that will support this notion of budget tracking. If the bank was on board, we could look into immediate (ie-at the time of purchase) categorization of our purchases. There are two ways this would work:

• User sets up (through online banking) frequently used purchases and matches them to the appropriate budget area. For instance- User normally gets gas at one of four stations- so anytime these four purchases show up- they are categorized as "gas" -changable of course in case you just bought a soda there or something. Also note- the user would set this up, the bank wouldn't try to assume it since that I think that would make the tin-foil hat brigade to start arming.
  
  
• The other way is to have a user definable action at the time of purchase. This would be something like- as you buy your groceries, you swipe your card and somehow indicate at the time of purchase that this is a "groceries" budget item.
  

Of course, this sounds unreasonable, barrier of entry is impossible, no way this would work, etc... but how about something simple? Like say- you can append to the end of your debit PIN number a 1 or 2 digit "extension" that tells the bank how to categorize it? The existing ATM/Debit infrastructure would need no change, just a bank willing to do this. Again- the user would be able to opt (opt out by default) into this of course. To further help- the bank could issue a debit card that has the prefixes printed on it (like "3 = Gas") instead of the eagle or Statue of Liberty or whatever.

I guess I'm proposing that our bank start integrating MS Money like features into it's online banking experience. Maybe some do, I'd love to hear who does. And I realize I'm probably not using MS Money to the full power- like I believe I can get the account listing to show "Gas station on 2nd St" instead of "INTAST-MEBB2 2ndST" or some garbage. But that UI for Money is VERY much a PITA to get used.